Speaking of Thanking

There I was talking with my mil and fil about s3x.

We discussed the time that she pulled him into "one of those shops" "just to look around"

Somewhere in the conversation my mil said, "I don't thank"
I didn't understand.
She said, "I'm not a thanker"

I clarified - it was a 'th' not an 's'

Then I figured it out. She doesn't say "thank you" afterwards.

I think that I am a thanker, not every time, not in any sort of dramatic way but sometimes in a playful way. But whenever I say it, I mean it every time.

Still, it's not like we have a rule or any expectation of what will be said before, during, and after.

I found her comments something to think about.

The way she said she was a NOT a thanker made me feel a little bit embarrassed to admit that I was, until I realized my s3x partner is her son and every mother wants her son to be well 'thanked' right? So I gave William his praise and told her I'm a thanker.

I have a lot to be thankful for today!!

No More Food Wars

Want a more peaceful home? Stop fighting about food.

Really! If your toddler won’t eat, don’t worry. If you’re preschoolers being picky about food, stop stressing. If your elementary school kid seems to need seconds (or thirds) for a week, don’t sweat it. If your teenager stops eating breakfast, just chill.

We want our kids to eat healthy and grow strong. But sometimes they know better than we do. I often tell parents, “Don’t force your child to eat something unless you really want to clean if off the floor when it comes back up.”

In my opinion, respecting a child’s eating preferences goes along with respecting themselves and their bodies. It is taking a step back and saying, “you are in control of you and no one is allowed to force you to do anything.”

Did I just say, cook you child whatever he wants to eat for every meal? No
Did I say let your child starve? No
Did I say I think it is totally cool if your kid will only eat red food for a year? Double No.

Of course medical issues need to be taken up with your pediatrician. If your infant isn’t eating enough. If your toddler had failure to thrive. If your pre-school child has food aversions. If your school child has diabetes or autism or allergies. If your teenager is heading for anorexia. All of this must be taken into account.

But for the most part, most of the time, kids’ food preference and the amount of food that they eat varies. A toddler may not be able to tell you that they don’t feel well. But you’ll sure find out if you force a bunch of food down their throat.

The best advice I have is:
1. Offer a wide range of healthy foods and snacks through the day
2. Let kids be involved in the food preparations
(when they get older they’ll cook for you, how cool is that?)
3. Make mealtimes / snack times fun
4. Don’t go to battle over what they chose to eat or not eat.

ENJOY!!

Justifiable Homicide Tuesday - Movie Lady

This feature was started by Vodka Logic

I was going to write another post like this one about some unparents I know, but instead I'm going to rant about the lady who sat one row behind us on Saturday.

It was a kids movie. But hey, that doesn't mean William and I can't kiss a little -right? Our kids were a few seats away from us . . . looking at the screne.

Well kiss number one, she cleared her throat. When we didn't stop she said, "Please, give me a break." In this kind of voice said she might vomit.

Next kiss she sighed and siad, "This is a children's movie." And I have to say that she was drawing more attention to us than we were to ourselves.

Okay, I know everyone doesn't stop and watch people kiss with a big grin on their face like I do. But we were in a dark movie theatre. We weren't trying to put on a show. She made it a big deal.

Really!

We try to sit in the crying room - this place didn't have one. Or the back row. It was full.

Still did she have to zero in on us? With every kiss? And make a big loudmouth comment?

Couldn't she do what 99% of the rest of th people in the room were doing and look up at the movie?

We varied the timing and lenght of our kissing. And, okay I'll admit it, a few times I started kissing William to see what she would say next.

She was a pain. The worst ever (well, except that time we were stopped by a police officer, but that's a different post).

I'm sure she thinks we were out of line.

What do you think??

knock knock!

If you have a toddler in your home, this is the perfect time to teach them to knock on closed doors. A wonderful thing about toddlers is that they like to copy what you do. So start knocking.

Knock on the front door when you come home before getting out your key.

Knock on their bedroom door before you take them in for naptime / nighttime

Knock on the bathroom door before bath time

Especially teach your toddler to knock on mommy and daddy’s door – on ALL bedroom doors

And keep playing and practicing and let’s hope this good habit will last a lifetime!!

Don’t make a mess

When you have preschoolers in the house, they notice things.

This is the age when something out of context triggers their interest. It is not the greatest trait when busy parents are trying to get a little action whenever and wherever they can.

So, busy parents, I warn you. Learn from my mistakes! If you’re going to have a stripfest s3x time in the living room, try you best to wake up before your preschooler(s). If you don’t and you hear the phone ring, really really try to pick up the phone before your four-year-old.

If you do, you may prevent your son from telling your parents: No I don’t know where Mommy is, but her and Daddy’s clothes were all over the living room floor. Oh, there they are sleeping on the sofa.

This happened years ago and is another one of my favorite Brice memories. He pestered me for a whole day why he has to pick up things off the floor in his room, but we threw our clothes on the floor.

PS thank god my mom is soooo cool!

Justifiable-Homcide-Tuesday on Wednesday - Lynn Gone Mad!

I've never got into the "do this thing on a certain day" blog schedules, because I'm not that organized.

But when I noticed Vodka Logic's Justifiable Homicide feature I began looking forward to Tuesday. Because a whole lotta parents who been leaving their kids running wild(actually hanging at my house) have been makin' me wanna bust somethin'

For those of you who are wondering this is NOT a guest blogger - just Lynn gone mad! Really mad!

I know my blog is all about lovin' & stuff. But some people! And there's enough going on to give me Justifiable Homicide posts for the whole rest of the year! So, even though I missed yesterday. I've gotta let off some steam.

Here's my top pick. I'd never wanna make a kid an orphan, but these two fools are on the top of my list: The parents of Little Joe

Little Joe is 10 years old. He hangs out at our house all the time. William and I are actually fine with a bunch of kids being over our house all the time. The kids aren't any problem -it's their parents!

Little Joe's parents are splitting up. I have no problem with that. Lots of folks split up.

But they are still living together
and stepping out on each other
and fighting night and day with each other.

Little Joe dropped by right when we're heading out and I say, "Little Joe, run ask your parents if you can come with us." He takes off down the street and zooms back: "My Mom says I can go, but my Dad says I can't."

It's like that for EVERYTHING! What's a kid supposed to do? I had to leave him. Sorry, but I'm not taking a kid in my car without their parents' permission (especially these parents).

So last weekend, he's over our house late and William's asleep, so I walk Little Joe home. It's only a block but I'm not letting a kid leave my house without making sure he is home safe. We get to his driveway and I tell him I wanna make sure he's in the house. He surprises me by pulling out his key.

It's 10:45 on a Friday night!

Remember, he's TEN YEARS OLD!!!

So I ask Little Joe, where's your Ma?
Answer: With her boyfriend.

Where's you Dad?
At his girlfriends'.

Who is watching you?
My brother.

Sigh of relief. His brother is almost 17.

Is he at home?
No, he's over at his girlfriend's. He always comes home by midnight though.

I call his brother to come back home.

But I really want to call his mom and his dad and tell them - ACT LIKE GROWN UPS!!!

Instead I'm offering them up for my first post - swim with the fishes you unmom & undad!

(Is it really weird that it feels so good to post this?)

Kissfest

It’s time to start a kissfest

I mean real live worldwide massive kiss craziness

Whoever it is that you kiss

Kiss them more

Kiss them longer

Kiss them when they least expect it

Kiss them where they least expect it

What makes a kiss memorable? The kiss itself? The place? Witnesses?

Here’s a favorite kiss memory of mine:

William and I were friends before we got together. I was in his dorm room and somehow ended up in his arms. He made his move by kissing me on the forehead. I looked at him and knew we were going to kiss. So I said, “stand up.” (how romantic, right? Yes I was bossy even then so he knew what he was getting into from the start.) But William didn’t ask questions he just stood up and so did I and we had this amazing and really long mushy kiss about halfway through the kiss (how do you tell with a kiss that long anyway?) the door to the room opened and in walked his roommate and one of my ex boyfriends. William didn’t stop kissing and neither did I.

Share a kiss memory in the comments section if you like.

The car wash

I nominate the car wash -it was my number one make-out spot today.

Don’t you love it? All dark and sudsy, the sounds of the water, the pounding and shaking of the car as those scrubbers go at the tires, dark and discrete when the big floppy brushes come down...perfect!

Ahhh, I love a little kissing in the car wash!

What place would you nominate?

Not now, Mommy & Daddy R s3xting

OOPS!

My middle monster (Brice) ran off without checking with me. I was fuming. I didn’t want to be the Mom calling around for my kid. (As you know we like having the entire neighborhood and their pets at our place).

I was considering how much time to give him & where to start looking when my phone beeped that message came in.

Ashton (my 12 yo), closest to my phone, reaches for it

Me: You might not want to read that…

Ashton: Maybe it’s from Brice

(I see him push the button to show messages)

Me: Maybe it’s from Daddy

Ashton: So?

Me: Maybe he’s writing something s3xy.

Ashton: (not quite believing me, but reads anyway) Gross!

Well, he can’t say I didn’t warn him!

And before the Ashton recovered, Brice was back home!

There are a lot of s3xting definitions on the web. In case you are wondering how far we go:

Definition 1: Sending text messages that are s3xy (YES!)

Definition 2: Sending a message with the hopes of having a s3xual encounter later (Yes, Yes!)

Definition 3: Sending nude or semi-nude photos (A GREAT BIG NO!!!)

What is with some people?

Really! I really want to know what is with some people! Do I have a brightly lit neon sign pointing to my house from miles around that says “Sucker Lives Here” or “Lynn’s house 2 miles on the left, bring your children, bring your injured, your weary, your RATS !”

I’ll leave the injured, neglected, and weary for another post.

Today I’m blogging about the rats!

We had our annual Halloween party. This is a party for kids. And it’s turned into something big. People don’t wait for invitations any more, they call up a few weeks ahead of time to make sure we’re having it. Some of the regular kids just assume they will spend the night.

We love costumes, trick or treating, pouring healthy pumpkin stew down their throats and some fruit to counteract the candy. And listening to them laugh and play until after midnight.

We have it down to a science.

This year we got the craziest calls:
Some we’re used to like:
Can I bring my younger (sister / brother(s)) or can I bring my older (sister / brother(s))
Can you pick up our kid for the party/?
Can you drive our kid home from the party –Halloween night or the next day?

But this year we got two calls to see if we had an extra costume – the answer is YES
Many calls to see if we would do the make-up – YES again

One crazy person who asked me if I would let her three kids bring their dog. “He’s little” and “He gets so worked up on Halloween night” (now that I think of it, he probably gets afraid and pees in their house) and “We have an adult party to attend.”

NO!! [Are you proud of me? I actually said, “No!”]

Because, hmmm…let me think, I have more than a dozen kids to worry about (three of them are yours), my own dog to consider, and YOUR DOG IS NOT MY PROBLEM!!

Geez!

And I thought that would be the strangest event of the night. Until I was out picking up one of our guests and returned home to find a couple of boys were dropped off while I was away. They had their costumes, their sleeping bags, and their pet rats. Yes, two boys and three live rats.

I love William. I love William. Yes, I love William. “But why did you let them bring the rats?”

“Well, it’s Halloween,” he said.

Yeah. It’s Halloween.